Renowned architect Dame Zaha Hadid has passed away at the age of 65. Hadid has been a foundational voice of contemporary architecture over the course of the early 21st Century, including London’s Olympic Aquatic Centre, the Guangzhou Opera House, and the MAXXI in Rome. (more…)
The Design Musuem announced on Tuesday that it has sold its Thames-side home to Zaha Hadid architects. The revenue of the £10 million sale will be added to the £80 fund necessary to move the museum to the Commonwealth Institute on Kensington High Street. The former banana-ripening warehouse will now become the offices of the practice, as well as a space for architecture exhibtions.
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The Telegraph
The Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum will open on November 10th, 2012 at Michigan State University, of which Mr. Broad is an alumnus. The Broads donated $26 million to the school in 2007 to build the museum, which has been designed by Zaha Hadid. The Broads also donated 19 works to the museum from their private collection. (more…)
Marya Kazoun, They were there (2011). All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed unless otherwise noted.
Glasstress 2011 is an exhibition devoted solely to glass, featuring internationally renowned artists, architects, and designers such as Zaha Hadid, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Kiki Smith, Doug and Mike Starn, Fred Wilson, Marya Kazoun, Huan Zhang, and even musician Pharrell Williams. It is one of the official 37 collateral events of the biennale, and also includes a reinstallment of Doug and Mike Starn’s Big Bambú on the roof of the Dorsoduro, next door to the Peggy Guggenheim Collection.
The walkway of Doug and Mike Starn’s Big Bambú. Image courtesy NYT.
More text and images after the jump… (more…)
Team Gallery Booth at Art Basel 2010, Image via Art Basel.
AO is on site at Art Basel, Switzerland, where Wednesday marked the official, public opening of the international show. On the roster was an inaugural Conversation Series speech by Paul McCarthy, an Art Film at Stadtkino Basel, and an Artist’s Talk with Rodney Graham at Kunstmuseum. If the congenial and thronged atmosphere hadn’t tipped us off to the anticipation surrounding this year’s exhibitions, Tuesday’s sales would have been a clear indication. A $15 million Picasso 1960 plaster maquette, Personnage, was snatched up immediately from Krugier Gallery by one of the VIP guests (an American collector) invited to Basel’s early opening, as was a line drawing by the same artist, one by Egon Schiele, and paintings by Max Ernst and Paul Klee. Sara Kay of the Geneva- and New York-based Kugier Gallery was unable to disclose the buyer of yesterday’s Picasso sale, but ten minutes after the purchase’s confirmation noted to Art Info that “[The] piece went to a very important collector with the best modern masters. This is museum-quality, not trophy-level. It’s a very serious piece.” Skarstedt Gallery also enjoyed a meritorious patronage yesterday, with sales including a Christopher Wool painting, Untitled, for $800,000, a Barbara Kruger photograph for $700,000, a Cindy Sherman piece for $500,000, and two works by George Condo: The Madman and The Colorful Banker, which fetched $375,000 and $225,000, respectively. Hufkens Gallery sold a Louise Bourgeois etching, A Baudelaire (#7), which the late artist completed several months before her death in May, for $650,000 to a European collector. Cheim & Read boasted a lucrative afternoon as well, with sales including a $2 million Joan Mitchell abstraction, a $125,000 Sam Francis drawing, a $100,000 Ghada Amer painting, Paradise, and a 28-strong Bourgeois watercolor series, Les Fleurs. Lisson Gallery sold two Anish Kapoor‘s for $742,000. Richard Prince‘s Student Nurse brought Gagosian $4.2 million, and Paul McCarthy’s bronze suites–Sneezy and Dopey–yielded Hauser & Wirth a combined total of $3 million. Blum & Poe sold a dyptich by Takashi Murakami for $1 million. White Cube reportedly sold six of Damien Hirst‘s new paintings, as well as Hirst’s “Memories of Love,” valued at $3.48 million. Lehmann Maupin sold two neon works by Tracey Emin, each for $74,000.
Damien Hirst, ““Memories of Love,” at White Cube’s booth, sold for $3.48 million. Image by Art Observed.
More images and text after the jump…
The Royal College of Art Secret Postcard fundraiser via The Guardian
-The Royal College of Art’s Secret 2009 event has 2,500 postcards for sale for £40, made by artists including Anish Kapoor, Grayson Perry and Yoko Ono. Though buyers don’t know who the artist is until after they buy. [Times UK]
-Penelope Curtis has been appointed director of Tate Britain, the first woman to hold a directorship at Tate. [Guardian]
-Tracey Emin opens a new exhibition in New York, that, while popular, comes nowhere near the levels of sales or attendance she normal receives in Britain. [NY Times]
An artist’s rendering of Olafur Eliasson’s ‘Cirkelbroen’ bridge to be built in Copenhagen via Artinfo
-Olafur Eliasson has designed a bridge to be completed by 2012 in Copenhagen’s harbor. Called ‘Brikelbroen,’ the bridge is comprised of five circles that take pedestrians on a winding path rather than straight across. [Artinfo]
To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week… (more…)
Huang Yongping's Sixty-Year Cycle Chariot sold for double the high estimate of $194,00, setting a new auction record for the artist, via Artdaily
Contemporary Asian Art Sale at Sotheby’s Hong Kong brings in $8.5 million USD, well wthin expectations with over half of the lots above estimate [Artdaily] more here [Bloomberg] and here [AuctionPublicity] and here [Economist] and here [Artinfo]
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and finally more here [China Daily via ArtPatrol]
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And in related: The Getty acquires 9 contemporary Chinese photographs for $100,000, boosting its Asian collection despite a tighter budget [Bloomberg]
Takashi Murakami will soon debut a new collaborative collection with Louis Vuitton [HypeBeast]
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New York financier/art collector Ezra Merkin charged with $2.4 bilion fraud, the proceeds of which were used to fill his apartment with $91 million worth of art including Mark Rothko works from his collection, one of the largest in the world for the artist [Guardian UK]
Kate Moss by Damien Hirst is the new cover of Tar Magazine (anagram for “art”) [NY Times]
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Art funds launched in 2008, such as the London-based Art Trading Fund, are shelved due to failure to raise required funds [ArtNewspaper]
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Art:21, Art in Twenty-First Century is now available for free on Hulu [Hulu]
Russian Artist Andrea Molodkin, previously cited by AO here, prepares for Venice Biennale [Financial Times]
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Jeff Koons is speaking at Strand Books tonight at 7:00-8:30 in New York [Via FAD]
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New York Old Masters dealer Lawrence Salander is indicted and pleads guilty in $88 million charge [Bloomberg]
A look inside Rome’s MAXXI designed by Zaha Hadid via c-monster
A preview of the MAXXI in Rome, $108 million art museum designed by Zaha Hadid [c-monster]
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Adam Lindemann, financier, collector and author of Collecting Contemporary launches a new book from Taschen: Collecting Design [ArtInfo]
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Flash Art’s current cover featuring a portrait of Barack Obama by Marlene Dumas via Art Fag City
Marlene Dumas’s portrait of Barack Obama is the cover of Flash Art [Art Fag City]
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Madonna’s art collection is estimated at £80 million pounds [TimesUK]
A selection from the site via The World’s Best Ever
A timeline of modern & contemporary art artists by movement, school, style, period, theme & art prize [The-artists.org via The World’s Best Ever]
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Richard Serra to receive honorary degree from Pratt Institute at its 120th Commencement on May 18th [MediaBistro]
Interview with photographer Nan Goldin on why she is auctioning some of the curiosities she has collected [TelegraphUK]
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SFMOMA announces plans for a future expansion, doubling gallery space [SF Chronicle]
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A preview of SANAA’s design for the 2009 Serpentine Pavillion via Architect’s Journal
SANAA, the Japanese architectual duo behind the New Museum, release first glimpse of design for the 2009 Serpentine Pavilion [Architect’s Journal]
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Jim Dine donates 40 drawings influenced by Greek and Roman sculpture to the Morgan Library [Artinfo]
Julian Schnabel’s Picasso Femme au Chapeau will soon be sold by Christie’s [New York Times]
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The Mugrabis, a high impact, market-making collector family, may be addicted to the game of art [The Observer]
A View of Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion, at Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield, designed by Zaha Hadid, via the New York Times
After stops in Hong Kong and Tokyo (as covered by AO here), the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion has arrived in New York. The itinerant art exhibit was commissioned by Karl Lagerfeld, the ubiquitous link between the art and fashion worlds, and was designed by Zaha Hadid, a Pritzker Prize winner and one of today’s foremost architects. The pavilion, whose design has most often been compared to a spacecraft’s, is set in Central Park’s Rumsey Playfield, offering a stark contrast to the park’s landscape through Hadid’s compelling use of smooth, white contours that resemble canvas–but are actually made of steel. Inside the installation, 20 artists display works inspired by Chanel’s coveted, iconic quilted handbag on a chain, also known as the 2.55. Admission to the exhibit is free by making a reservation on-site.
Chanel: Mobile Art
Zaha Hadid: Architect’s Website
A 7,500-Square-Foot Ad for Chanel, With an Artistic Mission [New York Times]
Art and Commerce Canoodling in Central Park [New York Times]
Chanel’s Purse Show Lands in New York With Curves by Zaha Hadid [Bloomberg]
Video: Inside the Chanel Mobile Art Exhibit! [New York Magazine]
FALL GLAMOUR IN NEW YORK [Artnet Magazine]
Karl Called [Park Avenue Peerage]
Chanel Mobile Art Container Lands in Central Park [Unbeige]
Chanel’s Mobile Art pavilion via NYTimes
Karl Lagerfeld, Artistic Director of CHANEL, Maureen Chiquet, Global CEO of CHANEL, and Bruno Pavlovsky, CHANEL Fashion President, along with Adrian Benepe, Commissioner of the Department of Parks & Recreation for the City of New York, and Douglas Blonsky, President of the Central Park Conservancy and Central Park Administrator, have announced that the Mobile Art Pavilion will touch ground in Central Park on October 20th and will stay through November 9th. The spacecraft-looking pavilion will sit in the Rumsey Playfield, around the center of the park at 5th Ave and 69th Street. Mobile Art is a 7,500-square-foot traveling art gallery that exhibits changing installations created by some of the leading international contemporary artists, such as Nobuyoshi Araki, the Blue Noses, Daniel Buren, Sophie Calle, Wim Delvoye, Sylvie Fleury, Yang Fudong, Subodh Gupta, Y.Z. Kami, Yoko Ono and Pierre & Gilles.
Central Park to Host Mobile Art Chanel Contemporary Art Container by Zaha Hadid [Dexigner]
Chanel Rents Central Park for Tacky Art Pavilion [Artnet]
Central Park To Host a Chanel Commission [NYSun]
Central Park to Host Exhibition Pavilion by Zaha Hadid [Contract Magazine]
A 7,500-Square-Foot Ad for Chanel, With an Artistic Mission [NYTimes]
Central Park to Host Mobile Art Chanel Contemporary Art Container By Zaha Hadid [Artdaily]
Chanel Brings Giant Ad/Art to Central Park [Gothamist]
More on Mobile Art covered by Art Observed here
Chanel’s Mobile Art – First Stop, Hong Kong via Museum Lab
The Pritzker prize winning, Iraqi-born, Zaha Hadid is the name marking Chanel’s newest and (potentially) most audacious endeavor to date in the merger of art and fashion. The project is a “portable” exhibition of contemporary art. The Mobile Art project, which is essentially a globe trotting collapsable pavilion, was designed by Hadid and has thus far served to bring contemporary art to the general public at its first world location: Tokyo, Japan.
Moving Pictures [NY Times]
Mobile Art Exclusive [Wallpaper]
Chanel Mobile Art
Quilty Pleasures [The National]
Zaha Hadid [DesignBoom]
Zaha Hadid and Karl Lagerfeld, image via Vanity Fair
Karl Lagerfeld and Zaha Hadid’s roving Chanel art space [Vanity Fair]
Art as an opaque, high risk/return asset class [FTimes]
Sotheby’s posts quarterly loss on lower commission margins [WSJ]
DiCaprio, his bike and his mom show up at Bonham’s NY debut [NYPost]
Alanna Heiss is PS1 [NY Mag]
A 5-part video series on Francis Bacon [Ubuweb via C-Monster]
